The World Journal of Men's Health (Jan 2024)

Does Varicocele Repair Improve Conventional Semen Parameters? A Meta-Analytic Study of Before-After Data

  • Rossella Cannarella,
  • Rupin Shah,
  • Taha Abo-Almagd Abdel-Meguid Hamoda,
  • Florence Boitrelle,
  • Ramadan Saleh,
  • Murat Gul,
  • Amarnath Rambhatla,
  • Parviz Kavoussi,
  • Tuncay Toprak,
  • Ahmed M. Harraz,
  • Edmund Ko,
  • Gökhan Çeker,
  • Damayanthi Durairajanayagam,
  • Noora Alkahidi,
  • Shinnosuke Kuroda,
  • Andrea Crafa,
  • Ralf Henkel,
  • Gianmaria Salvio,
  • Berk Hazir,
  • Mahsa Darbandi,
  • Marion Bendayan,
  • Sara Darbandi,
  • Marco Falcone,
  • Raghavender Kosgi,
  • Raneen Sawaid Kaiyal,
  • Keshab Karna,
  • Nguyen Ho Vinh Phuoc,
  • Ponco Birowo,
  • Giovanni M. Colpi,
  • Jean de la Rosette,
  • Germar-Michael Pinggera,
  • Quang Nguyen,
  • Armand Zini,
  • Wael Zohdy,
  • Rajender Singh,
  • Pallavi Saini,
  • Sidney Glina,
  • Haocheng Lin,
  • Taymour Mostafa,
  • Cesar Rojas-Cruz,
  • Mohamed Arafa,
  • Aldo E. Calogero,
  • Fotios Dimitriadis,
  • Priyank Kothari,
  • Vilvapathy Senguttuvan Karthikeyan,
  • Keisuke Okada,
  • Koji Chiba,
  • Ates Kadıoglu,
  • Baris Altay,
  • Tahsin Turunc,
  • Birute Zilaitiene,
  • Fatih Gokalp,
  • Aram Adamyan,
  • Darren Katz,
  • Eric Chung,
  • Tiago Cesar Mierzwa,
  • Daniel Suslik Zylbersztejn,
  • Gustavo Marquesine Paul,
  • Nikolaos Sofikitis,
  • Ioannis Sokolakis,
  • Vineet Malhotra,
  • Sakti Ronggowardhana Brodjonegoro,
  • Ricky Adriansjah,
  • Akira Tsujimura,
  • Toshiyasu Amano,
  • Giancarlo Balercia,
  • Imad Ziouziou,
  • Isaac Ardianson Deswanto,
  • Marlon Martinez,
  • Hyun Jun Park,
  • Mustafa Emre Bakırcıoglu,
  • Erman Ceyhan,
  • Kaan Aydos,
  • Jonathan Ramsay,
  • Suks Minhas,
  • Manaf Al Hashimi,
  • Ramy Abou Ghayda,
  • Nicholas Tadros,
  • Puneet Sindhwani,
  • Christopher C.K. Ho,
  • Rinaldo Indra Rachman,
  • Marcelo Rodriguez Pena,
  • Ahmad Motawi,
  • Arun Karthik Ponnusamy,
  • Satish Dipankar,
  • Azwar Amir,
  • Saleh Binsaleh,
  • Ege Can Serefoglu,
  • Ravi Banthia,
  • Kareim Khalafalla,
  • Ari Basukarno,
  • Nguyen Hoai Bac,
  • Karun Singla,
  • Rafael F. Ambar,
  • Konstantinos Makarounis,
  • Shivam Priyadarshi,
  • Gede Wirya Kusuma Duarsa,
  • Widi Atmoko,
  • Sunil Jindal,
  • Eko Arianto,
  • Hamed Akhavizadegan,
  • Haitham El Bardisi,
  • Ohad Shoshany,
  • Gian Maria Busetto,
  • Mohamad Moussa,
  • Mounir Jamali,
  • Mohamed S. Al-Marhoon,
  • Mikhail Ruzaev,
  • Hasan M. A. Farsi,
  • Shingai Mutambirwa,
  • Dong Sup Lee,
  • Deniz Kulaksiz,
  • Yu-Sheng Cheng,
  • Abderrazak Bouzouita,
  • Selcuk Sarikaya,
  • Hussein Kandil,
  • Georgios Tsampoukas,
  • Ala’a Farkouh,
  • Kasonde Bowa,
  • Missy Savira,
  • Nasser Mogharabian,
  • Tan V. Le,
  • Maruto Harjanggi,
  • Dang Tuan Anh,
  • Tran Quang Tien Long,
  • Mohammad Ayodhia Soebadi,
  • Lukman Hakim,
  • Marko Tanic,
  • Umut Cagin Ari,
  • Firuza R. Parikh,
  • Gokhan Calik,
  • Vinod KV,
  • Gyem Dorji,
  • Andri Rezano,
  • Osvaldo Rajmil,
  • Dung Mai Ba Tien,
  • Yiming Yuan,
  • Juan Francisco Lizarraga-Salas,
  • Balantine Eze,
  • Kay Seong Ngoo,
  • Joe Lee,
  • Umut Arslan,
  • Ashok Agarwal

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5534/wjmh.230034
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 42, no. 1
pp. 92 – 132

Abstract

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Purpose: The purpose of this meta-analysis is to study the impact of varicocele repair in the largest cohort of infertile males with clinical varicocele by including all available studies, with no language restrictions, comparing intra-person conventional semen parameters before and after the repair of varicoceles. Materials and Methods: The meta-analysis was performed according to PRISMA-P and MOOSE guidelines. A systematic search was performed in Scopus, PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases. Eligible studies were selected according to the PICOS model (Population: infertile male patients with clinical varicocele; Intervention: varicocele repair; Comparison: intraperson before-after varicocele repair; Outcome: conventional semen parameters; Study type: randomized controlled trials [RCTs], observational and case-control studies). Results: Out of 1,632 screened abstracts, 351 articles (23 RCTs, 292 observational, and 36 case-control studies) were included in the quantitative analysis. The before-and-after analysis showed significant improvements in all semen parameters after varicocele repair (except sperm vitality); semen volume: standardized mean difference (SMD) 0.203, 95% CI: 0.129–0.278; p<0.001; I2=83.62%, Egger’s p=0.3329; sperm concentration: SMD 1.590, 95% CI: 1.474–1.706; p<0.001; I2=97.86%, Egger’s p<0.0001; total sperm count: SMD 1.824, 95% CI: 1.526–2.121; p<0.001; I2=97.88%, Egger’s p=0.0063; total motile sperm count: SMD 1.643, 95% CI: 1.318–1.968; p<0.001; I2=98.65%, Egger’s p=0.0003; progressive sperm motility: SMD 1.845, 95% CI: 1.537%–2.153%; p<0.001; I2=98.97%, Egger’s p<0.0001; total sperm motility: SMD 1.613, 95% CI: 1.467%–1.759%; p<0.001; I2=97.98%, Egger’s p<0.001; sperm morphology: SMD 1.066, 95% CI: 0.992%–1.211%; p<0.001; I2=97.87%, Egger’s p=0.1864. Conclusions: The current meta-analysis is the largest to date using paired analysis on varicocele patients. In the current metaanalysis, almost all conventional semen parameters improved significantly following varicocele repair in infertile patients with clinical varicocele.

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